


Sentimental

by alitbitmoody



Series: How to Lie [3]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: (considering they're both imprisoned), Blink And You Miss It Slash, Drabble, During the Time Skip, Gen, M/M, Prison, Unexpected Visitors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 23:41:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19030330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alitbitmoody/pseuds/alitbitmoody
Summary: Oswald has a pair of visitors for his first birthday in Blackgate.





	Sentimental

Barbara Jr. coos sloppily at Oswald’s shoulder, leaving a patch of saliva on the sleeve of his gray uniform shirt. Dressed in a lavender onesie, she smells like tapioca starch and strained carrots; jarring but welcome in the sterile block of the prison visiting room.

"She really likes the purple,” her mother smiles across the table. “If I try to dress her in anything else, I get a squirming fit."

His lip curls in reflexive amusement. The logical voice in his head (that sounds uncannily like Edward) says it probably has nothing to do with the color itself -- children her age are only starting to see color clearly. More likely it’s acute sensitivity to the texture and shape of the less used, less worn-in clothing.

Still, it’s an amusing thought. If nothing else, the tiny human has good taste.

The visit had been unexpected. No calls or letters, nothing indicating the budding real estate investor formerly known as “Barbara Queen” would be coming to see him, let alone that she would be bringing her nine-month-old.

"This is you being strategic I take it?" he asks, adjusting his hold to secure the wriggling infant resting on his chest, facing outward so that she can see her mother.

"What, visiting an old friend? Bringing my daughter to see her godfather on his birthday?" she asks, reaching for one of Barbara Jr’s tiny hands.

“Walking back in to a maximum security hellhole six weeks after you were released?”

Three months. Protective custody. The lightest of love taps compared to what he and Edward had been given. Oswald had still blanched at how Commissioner Gordon pressed his newborn’s mother into taking a plea and serving time when said child was still nursing; still forming all of the attachments she would need to carry throughout her life. Short-sighted, almost cruel.

"Touché,” Barbara says, a hint of steel in her gaze. “Call it me being practical. I've known you for a long time and I'm not naive like the others -- this place isn't even a short pause for you."

'This place,' meaning Blackgate. Meaning knocked from the top of his reclaimed power once again; constrained, restrained, kept from what (and who) he loves most. **No.** A few of those threads have already fallen back into his grasp and, once he fulfills this joke of a sentence, the rest will follow.

"I’m sure I don’t know what you mean," he answers, noncommittal to anyone who might be watching. The reply sets off a mischievous spark in his former conspirator's eye.

"Of course not.” A beat. “We could also say I'm sentimental?"

"You are _not_ and we won't."

"But _you_ are," Barbara’s smile is reserved, serious, a heavy calendar of weeks and months, ruins and rebuilding. “I don’t need much from anyone… but I might need that. So does she.”

They are not alike in what they hold dear, but he knows she mourns as he does, remembers as he does. And her eye, like his, remains on the future.

Yes, Oswald's sentimentality remains and that is good news for Barbara Jr. (and all of her various parents) in the long term. Privately he has to give Barbara Sr. credit: for once her heart is in the right place.

The door swings open, the guard’s eyes are almost apologetic as he taps his watch.

"You’re a good mother,” Oswald nods, stroking the baby’s back one last time before carefully passing her over. “I believe we can arrange for a longer visit in the future."

Both Barbaras smile at that.

"We'll be back next month, same time same channel."

**Author's Note:**

> Small note: the idea of Barbara taking a plea deal came out of a discussion about the finale I had with several people on why she might not have a firearm immediately available and would instead need to retrieve a secret one from a locked drawer in her old club. (Which also establishes an implied hierarchy in the punishments Jim Gordon metes out pre-time skip with Lee keeping her medical license, Barbara and Oswald both having established sentences in Blackgate, and Ed being committed to Arkham for an undetermined length of time).


End file.
